LAS VEGAS – Billionaire Phil Ruffin said Wednesday he intends to redevelop the New Frontier hotel-casino without a partner and is considering building a second massive condo tower on the property with Donald Trump.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin envisions replacing the aging New Frontier with a 3,000-room megaresort and possibly breaking ground by the end of 2005.<\/P><\/p>\n
“We are not going to take a partner,” Ruffin told The Associated Press. “We are going to do something. We did turn down $20 million an acre. Vegas is on fire. Let’s face it.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin said he refused about a dozen offers from suitors looking to get a piece of the Strip, where he believes an acre is worth at least $20 million. The 38.5-acre property is near one of the most desirable corners along the famous boulevard.<\/P><\/p>\n
To finance the deal, Ruffin said he plans to sell three resorts in the Bahamas.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin bought the New Frontier seven years ago for $165 million. The 1,000-room property was built in 1967 and is close to a new hotel-casino to be opened by Steve Wynn on April 28 and to The Venetian resort and its planned sister property.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin also said he’s also considering building a second tower with Trump, who recently agreed to construct a $300 million, 64-story condo-hotel on about 3.5 acres behind the New Frontier.<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin said 913 of the 1,260 planned units already have been sold.<\/P><\/p>\n
“They are going fast – much faster than we anticipated,” he said. “We are considering tower two.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Ruffin said it would be almost identical to the first planned golden structure, with prime views of the Strip.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Wichita, Kan., businessman made his fortune in real estate. Forbes magazine estimated his worth at $1.3 billion and ranked him No. 215 this year on its list of the 400 richest Americans.<\/P><\/p>\n
By ADAM GOLDMAN from Associated Press<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To finance the deal, Ruffin said he plans to sell three resorts in the Bahamas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}